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You know I've always considered you a clown, so the story below should please you.

I must admit that I've always thought of you as the Lion from the Wizard of Oz, but the bravery you have shown against the all powerful darkside deserves a medal.

We all need to become friends again (stenters and non-stenters) and fight the real enemy.

Maybe the way to settle it is to arrange a cage fight competition between you and Cheer? My gut feeling is that a sleezeball like you (I'm sure you look like Homer Simpson in the flesh) would win. But Cheer looks a tough bird with big hair - so I'll be placing $100 on Cheer to win in round 2.

For all those with MS (not Bob, Cheer, Harry Z, NAPAY etc etc) - time to get you balls out.

Juggling may help fight Multiple Sclerosis

Complex tasks like juggling produce significant changes to the structure of the brain, according to scientists at Oxford University.

In the journal, Nature Neuroscience, the scientists say they saw a 5% increase in white matter - the cabling network of the brain.

The people who took part in the study were trained for six weeks and had brain scans before and after.

Long term it could aid treatments for diseases like multiple sclerosis.

Diffusion MRI

The team at Oxford's Department of Clinical Neurology used a diffusion MRI which is able to measure the movement of water molecules in the tissues of the brain.

The signal changes according to how many bundles of nerve fibres there are and how tightly packed they are.

Changes in grey matter, where the processing and computation in the brain happens, have been shown before, but enhancements in the white matter have not previously been demonstrated.

Three ball cascade

The scientists studied a group of 24 healthy young adults, none of whom could juggle.

They divided them into two groups.

One of the groups was given weekly training sessions in juggling for six weeks and was asked to practice 30 minutes every day the other 12 continued as normal.

After training, the 12 jugglers could perform at least two continuous cycles of the classic three ball cascade.

Both groups were scanned using diffusion MRI before and after the training.

At the six week point, a 5% increase in white matter was shown in a rear section of the brain called the intraparietal sulcus for the jugglers.

This area has been shown to contain nerves that react to us reaching and grasping for objects in our peripheral vision.

There was a great variation in the ability of the volunteers to juggle but all of them showed changes in white matter.

The Oxford team said this must be down to the time spent training and practising rather than the level of skill attained.

Dr Heidi Johansen-Berg, who led the team, said: "MRI is an indirect way to measure brain structure and so we cannot be sure exactly what is changing when these people learn.

"Future work should test whether these results reflect changes in the shape or number of nerve fibres, or growth of the insulating myelin sheath surrounding the fibres.

"Of course, this doesn't mean that everyone should go out and start juggling to improve their brains.

"We chose juggling purely as a complex new skill for people to learn."

Clinical Applications

Dr Johansen-Berg said there were clinical applications for this work but there were a long way off.

She said: "Knowing that pathways in the brain can be enhanced may be significant in the long run in coming up with new treatments for neurological diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, where these pathways become degraded."

"If I start with juggling knives, do you think I might improve over that 5%?

I've only been here since May so I'm unsure of how things were before then. I, personally, enjoy the heated conversations. As long as they don't turn personal of course. I think every type of treatment could be debated about until it's death, whether we have proof of it's success or not.

However, sometimes I do feel a little scared to comment on something. More afraid of giving the wrong advice (and being scorned for it) then asking the wrong question. It's kind of like high school, I'm a freshman and I'm steering clear of the juniors and seniors.

This post probably makes zero sense.Off topic, today is my sons b-day party & I told my husband, "from here on out, I'm going to be more care-free." Then some woman/competitor emailed me about business and threw all that care free shit out the window.

Anyway, I love this site no matter how bitchy people do or don't get. As long as it's not towards me, it's pretty entertaining. My new neuro was impressed by my knowledge of MS. Even though it's slim compared to the rest of you, I gave credit where credits due.

Nope, not kidding. I'm looking for a new job and lots of them give extra credit if you're bilingual. And since I already know a tiny bit of spanish, I figure this would be the one that would be the quickest and easiest to learn.

Then I could attend Spanish mass on Sunday night and see how much I can understand too.

I lucked out about 9 years ago when I got a job with a university - where one of the perks is taking college classes for free. This semester I've returned to academics (Geology) from yoga classes (last spring & summer). I've already ordered a hiking stick to match my fabulous cane in order to go on the field trip to some area caves. No jumping jacks, but I expect a pretty exhilarating workout of both my brain and body!

Dx'd with MS & HNPP (hereditary peripheral neuropathy) 7/03 but must have had MS for 30 yrs before that. I've never taken meds for MS except 1 yr experiment on LDN. (I found diet, exercise, sleep, humor, music help me the most.)

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